


Aftercare

by respoftw



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Dom John Sheppard, M/M, Sub Rodney McKay, mention of Rodney/Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 22:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Wandering the halls of Antarctica, John stumbles across a sub in need.





	Aftercare

The existence of the super-secret base thirty miles due north of them wasn’t news to anyone who was stationed at McMurdo. The constant ferrying of supplies and scientists should have been enough to stir the curiosity of even the most rigidly rule-following of military personnel, but John hadn‘t even been at McMurdo for a full day before he heard someone dismiss the base as nothing but a glacial observation post.

Sure, some of the more eager young soldiers liked to talk it up, but the general consensus was that the super-secret base wasn’t even worth wondering about.

Walking around it, John thought that if any of those men or women saw just how decadently set up for hard play the place was he wouldn’t be the only one with a write up for stealing a helicopter on his ticket.

There seemed to be as many playrooms as labs in the place, and there were a lot of labs. He’d commented on that fact in earshot of Dr Jackson and been subjected to a twenty-minute long lecture about how the Ancients who built this place were likely the ones who seeded the culture of dominance and submission on Earth. Dr Jackson had used a lot more words than that, but John figured that was the gist of it.

He had no idea if Dr Jackson was right about that but, one thing was for sure; whoever had built this place had definitely embraced their dynamic. One look at the ornate exhibition space that took up the very centre of the structure was enough to realise that.

It wasn’t in use at the moment; it would have been strange if it was given that it was past 0200 and John seemed to be the only one crazy enough to be out of his quarters at this time. He had tried to sleep but his mind was still busy processing the events of the day. His day had started with getting shot at by an alien drone and ended with the revelation that not only did aliens exist but that people from Earth had actually met them, had travelled through a wormhole to other planets, were trying to figure out how to use the same wormhole to go to another galaxy.

It was a lot to take in and not exactly conducive to sleep. So, John walked.

And poked his head into the various playrooms he found along the way. Most of the equipment in them was familiar to John - even if it had been a long time since he’d found cause to use any of it - but every so often something different - something alien - caught his eye. Those pieces called to him, lighting up under the touch of his fingers and whispering their secrets to him. John was half hard from just imagining how he could use them. Restraints that would only unlock at his touch, a shield that would stop a sub from even being able to touch themselves, forcing them to rely on their dom...John shivered at the possibilities.

A glance at his watch told him that it was close to 0300; way past time that he should be headed back to his assigned quarters. Sighing, John took a left turn, ready to head back and that’s when he heard it.

Quiet muttering interspersed with pained hisses was coming from one of the rooms ahead. John frowned, moving closer to the room. The room had the three-tier lighting system outside of it that told John it was a playroom rather than a lab. Green for available, Amber for occupied and Red for assistance required. John wondered if that’s where the modern day traffic light consent system came from. Dr Jackson would probably know. Hell, he had probably covered it in his mini-lecture, but John had stopped listening fifteen minutes in. The light on the room the noise was coming from was the same as all the other ones John had passed - green.

If it had been amber he wouldn’t have dared look in - interrupting a scene on a military base was a fast-track way to find yourself on latrine duty but since the room was green, John stepped forward, the door sliding open at his approach the way all of the doors in this place did.

He didn’t see anyone in the room at first, but then a slight movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention.

A partially naked sub was sitting on the floor, his back red with angry looking welts that could only have come from a cane. Dots of blood adorned the cane marks, but the skin wasn’t burst. Whoever had inflicted those marks was well trained. John knew from experience that the cane was an unforgiving tool that bordered on tortuous in the wrong hands.

The sub was moving slowly, his hand shaking as he ineffectually tried to apply lotion to his own back.

John stepped forward and stumbled over a pair of boots, his quiet curse causing the sub to startle, attempting and failing to push to his feet in haste.

“Sorry,” John held his hands out in apology once he had his feet back under him. “Sorry, I, ah, I heard a noise and - - you’re Dr McKay, right?”

John recognised the scientist from earlier that day. He was the one who had asked him to think about where they were in the universe; the one who was wearing the orange fleece. Thinking back to the way McKay had ordered everyone about he was damn surprised to find out that he was a sub.

Dr McKay hadn’t answered him and John might have only met the man once, but he knew that wasn’t right. McKay had barely stopped yapping all afternoon. Moving closer, John used his training to assess the situation and didn’t like what he saw.  
McKay’s trousers were pulled on but not buttoned, and he only had one sock on. John could see the rest of McKay’s clothes - including the boots he had tripped over - scattered in various places around the room, too far for McKay to reach from the area he was still half sprawled. His eyes were glassy, his hands were shaking, and he had all the markings of a sub approaching drop.

“Where’s your dom?” John asked, tightly. Anger was rising in him, anger at the dom - whoever they were - who had left him like this. Leaving a sub like that after what looked to John’s eyes like an incredibly intense scene just wasn’t done. Not by anyone that John counted as worthy of oxygen anyway.  No matter how well trained on the cane they were.

“S’not my dom,” McKay - Rodney - muttered, reaching to pull another sock closer. John saw the way he winced at the movement, the welts on his back no doubt making themselves known now that the adrenaline of the scene was wearing off.

John stamped his way around the room and gathered up the rest of Rodney’s clothes, holding them in his arms.

“Are they coming back?” he asked.

Rodney frowned, not understanding.

“The dom who did this. Are they coming back?”

Rodney scoffed, an amused breath of air expelled from his throat. “Why would he? He got what he wanted. I got what I wanted. Now if you could just give me my clothes I can get out of here.”

It was a worthy performance. John might have even believed it if it weren’t for the fact that Rodney’s eyes still weren’t focussing or the fact that his shaking was getting worse by the second.

John knelt down next to Rodney, placing his folded clothes in a pile next to him. He could feel the way Rodney’s muscles tightened up at the closeness and John used every ounce of training he had to push the anger at whoever had left him like this down. This wasn’t the time for anger. That could come later. Now had to be about Rodney, it had to be about taking care of Rodney.

John pitched his voice low and soothing. “Dr McKay, listen to me. You’re starting to drop.”

Rodney’s head started to shake in disagreement, but John carried on anyway.

“You are. You need someone to bring you down safely. You need someone to clean up your back, to keep you grounded and stay with you until you’re back to yourself. Aftercare 101 - it’s not astrophysics.”

Rodney rolled his eyes at that, but he had stopped shaking his head which John counted as a win.

“Now, do you have someone that I can call to do all that for you?”

Rodney screwed his eyes shut, his shoulders slumping. “Carson but he, he -”

John remembered the softly spoken Scottish dom who had nearly killed him earlier. “But he left with General O’Neill,” John sighed. “Is there anyone else?”

Rodney shook his head, no. His head dipped as if in shame and John couldn’t bear it.

“Hey,” he said gently, touching his fingers to Rodney’s chin. “That’s ok. You’re doing really well, ok?”

Rodney humphed an argument and John couldn’t help but grin. Rodney wasn’t like any sub that John had ever seen before. He bet that whoever collared McKay would have to work damn hard for it. He also bet that it would be all the sweeter for it which wasn’t something John had ever thought before.

John swallowed against a wave of want and stuffed it down with the anger. If he tried to make a move on Rodney now, when he was compromised, he was as bad as the asshole who had left Rodney like this.

Still, he had to do something.

“Rodney? If it’s ok with you, I can do it.”

“Do what?” Rodney’s glassy eyes sought John’s out.

“Take care of you. Just for tonight. I’ll help you get clean, get you warm and stay with you until you’re ready to go. That’s all. No funny business, just one buddy looking after another.”

John held his breath, not sure what the hell he was going to do if Rodney said no but Rodney nodded, his eyes closing again as he let his weight fall against John, trusting John to hold him up.

It felt like he had been given something precious.

John was starting to suspect that he had.

Getting Rodney to the bed on the other side of the playroom was easy. Stripping off his trousers and the one sock he had managed to put one was the easiest thing John had ever done. It felt right in a way that nothing ever had before.

Rodney’s upper thighs and ass were covered in welts too, and John had to breathe for a moment as the anger at whoever had left him without aftercare threatened to break him again.

“I like pain,” Rodney muttered sleepily against the pillow of the bed. “Asked for it.”

John smiled, laying his hand on Rodney’s head, stroking his hair. “And I bet you took it beautifully,” he praised. “Tell me what you like.”

John gently cleaned the marks, applying an aloe gel to the particularly vicious ones while Rodney murmured about the things he liked, often drifting off to silence until John prodded him to keep going.

“Say that one again?” John asked.

“Petting,” Rodney muttered, burrowing deeper into the blanket John had wrapped around him. “Afterwards, when the pain’s done. Like being petted.”

John ran his hand through Rodney’s hair, petting him gently. “Like this?”

Rodney moaned, pushing his head harder into John’s hands. “Like that,” he agreed.

John petted him until Rodney was loose and relaxed, a puddle on the bed. The shaking had stopped, and his eyes seemed brighter. His body temperature was coming up too.

John knew that Rodney would be embarrassed later, would probably try to push him away, to make light of what happened between them but John didn’t care. God help him, he was looking forward to it.

As he drifted off to sleep next to Rodney, he made his plans for tomorrow. The first thing on his list - after finding out who the hell Rodney had been playing with last night - was to track down O’Neill and tell him yes.

He was following Rodney to Atlantis. Wild horses couldn’t stop him.


End file.
